Question for ZuWo, regarding Switzerland

[ZuWo]

I must admit that I have not informed myself very thoroughly about the content of these tax deals yet but I will certainly do that once I will receive my ballot by mail. But from my gut feeling I also think that the tax deal with Austria and the UK are more likely to pass than the tax deal with Germany. While most Swiss voters know that some of the practices of the Swiss banks in the past were illegal, many people are fed up with the aggressive rhetoric of the German SPD (notably with some comments by Sigmar Gabriel and Peer Steinbrück) and the highly problematic purchase of stolen bank details by the German state North-Rhine Westphalia.

[ZuWo]

Each tax deal will be voted on separately - if enough signatures for a referendum can be collected until September 27 (50000 signatures are necessary for each tax deal). So it's very well possible that the tax deals with the UK and Austria get the support of the majority of the Swiss electorate come November but the German tax deal fails.

Interestingly, both socialists and members of the SVP and other right-wing parties are opposed to the tax deals though they refuse to work with each other.

Here's the petition form of the AUNS (a formally non-partisan political group for the independence of Switzerland):

http://www.referendum.ch/download/unterschriftenbogen_referendum_steuern.pdf

And this is the petition form of the JUSO (the young socialists):

http://www.juso.ch/files/u787/ref_a4_juso_d_web_ps_100712.pdf

[ZuWo]

Two questions.
The goal of the referendum is to force the government to reject it, or to force the government to accept it?
The rejection of them would be YES or NO on the ballot?

The primary goal of the referendum is to let the people have the final say on the tax deals, with the ultimate goal being that the tax deals will be rejected.

In order to avoid the kind of confusion you mentioned, the questions on the ballot will fortunately be presented in the most straightforward way possible, probably like this:

- Do you approve of the tax deal with Germany/Austria/the UK (each question will be asked separately)?

A YES vote means you approve of the tax deal in question, a NO vote means the opposite.

[ZuWo]

There aren't any representative and reliable polls at the moment - polling on initiatives is relatively rare in Switzerland anyway. I still think that the Austrian and the Britain tax deals will pass but the deal with Germany doesn't seem to have a lot of chances of being passed. Interestingly, it's Germany which causes is the problem at the moment even though it's the German states (especially some of the SPD-governed states like Northrhine-Westphalia) which desperately need the money which they could get with this tax deal.